Which are the best DVDs? (And why?)

I sometimes think that I'm missing out on some really great DVDs. Which ones should I have, and why?

If you know any with great dts sound I'm all ears.

I'm after your opinions of the best DVD-Video & DVD-Audio, I have Multi-Region players. Buying R1 is easy for me.

Thanks

Al

On the dvd-audio side I would recommend "Hotel California" and Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" and yes, I know they are both twenty-something years old. Its amazing to me how good the multi channel versions of these sound, especially the cymbals. For something new that is recorded in high resolution let me recommend http://www.aixrecords.com/catalog/sampler.html It's free if you can get it shipped to England. Not all the tracks are to my taste, but did I mention its free? (you have to pay shipping)

I can't get that link to work. Try www.aixrecords.com and follow the link to the dvd-audio/video sampler.
Gary

I'll categorise my recommendations a bit - great audio, great visuals and audio, and just plain great..

Great audio:

Cutthroat Island Japanese R2 (DTS)
Armageddon Japanese R2 (DTS)
The Mummy Returns R4 (DTS)

Great visuals, audio:

Lawrence of Arabia
Superman Special Edition, R4
True Lies Special Edition, R4

Just plain great:

Gladiator R1, DTS
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Superbit edition
Fifth Element R1 Superbit edition (DTS)
Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the ring (but you didn't really need me to tell you that, did you..)
Toy Story 2
Ronin
American Beauty
The Shawshank Redemption
October Sky

And probably quite a few others, but these are the ones that immediately come to mind..

If you're after DTS stuff to blow your socks off, Cutthroat Island, Armageddon, Fifth Element, and The Mummy Returns all do the job very well.

Although, as far as I know Cutthroat Island and Armageddon were only ever released in DTS in Japan..

Graham

I don't have a huge collection. I like to look for my favorite movies on DVD and hope they packed extra features on them.

1. Superman (like Graham mentioned). The best superhero movie ever! The Webhead's got nothin' on the Man of Steel.

Favorite features: test shots of Christopher Reeve with various actresses trying out for Lois Lane; he's really skinny and has a huge head of '70s hair. Audio commentary by the director. Behind the scenes describing the special effects and what it took to make the movie.

2. The Matrix. Great audio on this one.

Favorite feature: behind the scenes of "bullet time" and concept art.

3. Men in Black.

Favorite feature: audio commentary with the director and Tommy Lee Jones. You can actually see a silhouette of the two of them talking and gesturing at the movie. It's like sitting behind them in a dark movie theater.

Try searching www.cnet.com for DVD's. Every now and then, they produce a list of recommended DVD's.

The Fantasia super collection--honestly don't know if it has DTC but either way it's a great 3 DVD set.

Armagedden criterion collection DVD, also, don't know if it has DTS but it's an awesome set.

Thanks for your ideas!

aixrecords - GOT

True Lies Special Edition - GOT

Gladiator R1, DTS - GOT
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Superbit edition - GOT
Fifth Element R1 Superbit edition (DTS) - GOT
Lord of the Rings: FotR R1 - GOT
Toy Story 2 - GOT (Box set!)
Ronin R1 - GOT
American Beauty R1 - GOT
The Shawshank Redemption R2 - GOT
October Sky ???

Cutthroat Island Japanese R2 (DTS) ??? Really?

Armageddon Japanese R2 (DTS)
The Mummy Returns R4 (DTS) I've seen these - not worth getting just for sound...

Lawrence of Arabia ??
Superman Special Edition, R4 ??
I'll look into these...

Other DVDs I've got include:
The Fantasia super collection (dts)
Die Hard Box Set (dts)
T2 (metal box) (dts)
Rush Hour 2 (dts)
Leon
AirForceOne (SuperBit)
Dracula (SuperBit)
The Cube (Best Stereo sound ever)
Aliens Box set
Starship Troopers
Gladiator
Saving Private Ryan
Face Off
The Rock
Abyss (Special Edition)
Preditor (dts)
Kiss of the Dragon

I've got both Hotel Cali & Rumours
And Queen's One Night at the Opera

I've also got 10 DVD-A (Classical Music)
And a number of dts CDs.

So you guys have given me some good ideas to look into.

Thanks!

Al

P.S.
Are there any other DVDs I should have?

I should point out that I've spent almost £3000 on my kit (excluding TV) I'm going to be upgrading my surround to either Boston Acoustics VRS or Def-Tech BP2X. I need to have white surrounds for wall mounting.
If you guys have any other surrounds I should try out (must be white), and in the same price bracket, please let me know if I'm missing some obvious choices.

Cheers!

Al

Heres an off the wall suggestion:

Amos and Andy

They also have Sherlock Holmes and others..

I'm thinking about getting them, but I'm saving up.

I just moments ago finished watching the (widescreen) DVD of LOTR om my computer-

I really enjoyed the movie in the theater last December.....

THIS was even better. The music sounded better, the acting even seemed better all around.

I don't know if it was the "intimacy" of sitting two feet away from my 19" monitor with headphones on and no distractions or what, but it was a more enjoyable experience than in the theater.

The special features on the DVD were nice too, although not really wonderful or amazing.

I will be looking forward to the extended DVD version coming out in November- There is supposed to be an extra half hour worth of the story that didn't make it to the theater OR this DVD.

Originally posted by Size15s:
Thanks for your ideas!

October Sky ???

Cutthroat Island Japanese R2 (DTS) ??? Really?

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Pioneer have released various movies in Japan with DTS soundtracks, some of which are not available in other regions in DTS. Cutthroat Island is one of the better ones, in my opinion. Jackie Chan's Who Am I? is another.

Cutthroat Island has some fantastic sound sequences, and is pretty much action-packed. Its a pirate movie though, so depends whether you like that stuff.

October Sky isn't anything special in terms of sound or such, just a very good movie - quite underrated, in my opinion.

The R4 Superman sp. ed. is *very* nice - the soundtrack has been completely re-recorded in DD5.1, and sounds great. The opening credits are fantastic. I wasn't interested in getting this one initially, until my friend sat me down and played the credit sequence for me - minutes later I was online putting in an order..

I have about 200 or so DVDs at the moment, but it sounds like you've got most of the cool stuff covered. A few others I think are just plain good movies, and worth having are:

Groundhog Day
Princess Bride
Enemy at the Gates
Peacemaker
The Great Escape
LadyHawke
Kellys Heroes

I don't have DVD-A so can't recommend anything there..

Graham

Top Gun-excellent soundtrack.

This is a little off the subject, but let me recommend dvd profiler for keeping track of the dvd-videos. I have around 200 titles and have been using it for a couple of years. Its free for the standard version and reasonable for the upgrade and does a great job of keeping record, including pictures of the box artwork.

Do you like the dvd-audion version of Night at the Opera? I have heard some bad reviews.

Let me second Lawrence of Arabia and give one more dvd recommendation for the extras: Contact.

Still, if I'm doing a demo of my home theater for someone, it's going to be the diva scene from Fifth Element, only now its superbit.

Gary

Gary,

The SuperBit DVD start up is cool, and that sceen (we usually end up watching the rest of the film as well)
The T2 startup is awesome. The logo smashing is great.
The THX "whumph" shows off the wall of sound I can create.

The LotR:FotR DVD has some great surround. Infact, some of the best use of rear channels and such that I've ever heard.

The Extended version will be in dts-ES. In time I will upgrade to dts-ES 7.1

To be honest, I've only just got the Queen DVD-A. I've not listened to it for more then 5 minutes before work. There's a great Bach DVD-A of his organ music, and Beethoven's 9th is awesome.

Of course there are the Episode One & Bond DVDs too.

What fun DVD is!

Al

Spudman, at last count (Just before he moved out in January) my brother had 186 DVDs including the full Planet of the Apes box set. I've no idea how many he has now!

Sounds like you'll miss him Saaby.
Dvd profiler keeps track of boxed sets like they are one product, so the planet of the apes set would count as one dvd. I don't know the exact number of dvds in my collection. I could add up the box sets and get the number, but my real concern was to know what I had. Ken Burns Jazz series and the complete Prisoner are two of my box sets that have several dvds but they don't really need to be numbered separately in my database.

Now if I would only turn off the computer and all these flashlights and find time to watch some more movies.

Gary

I've just had a look through my DVDs.
about 10 are missing.
I can't remember which ones... I think it's theses:

Con Air
The Fast and the Furious (good sound btw)
Scream
Ronin
Leon
Mars Attacks
Hannibal

I guess I have to make a list of all my DVDs because I can't remember the rest!

My brother has some explaining to do.
He's not allowed to borrow my R1 DVDs without asking.

Al

All pretty good recommendations.

The one I would add is The Fugitive with Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones. The audio/sound effects in the bus crash/shootout/train wreck at the beginning is one of the best tests of a home theater system that I've ever witnessed.

Anybody got the new "Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan" DVD? I always thought that one had the best soundtrack of the series.

a good application that would run on a pda (palmos) would be nice...

i think my solution is to create a flat text file and covert it to a palm book...

as i don't expect i'll own more than a few hundred dvds that shouldn't be too onerous to "search" through, or keep a printout for shopping missions.

if i got really ambitious, i could use thinkdb and use one of many [relational] templates they seem to have which keeps track of almost every detail of the disc/movie... it's a bit overkill :>

There are two groups of people in the world.
Those who split the world into groups and those who don't...

Getting Star Treks would be a start of a dangerous road (I'd have to get them all)

Al